Three Hearings

Three hearings were held today that revealed some curious things about the state of the United States. I'll provide links for each of them.

First up -- Joe Cassano, former master of the universe/AIG derivatives division. Best part was Cassano's $280 million compensation over an eight-year period, plus $1 million/month salary paid by AIG for his "consultant" work for the firm after he was no longer on AIG staff. Bloomberg story is best of the bunch; NY Times' is by far the weakest.

Next up -- Porn stars testified in a Los Angeles hearing that using condoms during filming would cramp their style. According to the LA Times story, one porn actor said "If you're worried or paranoid, you should not be in this industry."

And then -- Elena Kagan in a genuinely funny moment at her Senate committee confirmation hearings. The Talking Points Memo story includes the relevant dialogue between Senator Lindsay Graham and Supreme Court nominee Kagan.

The Wire

I've been catching up with the first decade of the 21st Century. One way to reflect on this unlamented time is to watch episodes of The Wire. I'm currently watching the second season, which focuses on the corruption that goes on all around us, and possibly within us, on a daily basis. The show has helped me appreciate Baltimore, a city I like, even more than I did.

From Russia With Love

A well-told spy story takes craft, research, and brains. Such tales also sell; publishers can't get enough of the good ones. So it made sense that two people recently arrested for allegedly being Kremlin spies lived in publishing-rich Montclair. The Russian agents already knew their trade; perhaps their true cloak and dagger work was getting inside the publishing network honeycombing the New Jersey suburb. After all, in the publishing business as well as for the spy world, it's who you know that counts.

Cirque du Soleil, a Lunar Eclipse. and Asylum Street

My wife and I watched Cirque du Soleil's current show, "Ovo," under a tent in Hartford last night. The show's muddled ecological theme couldn't obscure the talents of Cirque's assembled acrobats and aerialists. Their uniquely impressive skills were massively entertaining and remarkably well sustained for the two-and-one-half-hour spectacle. As a pleasant, uplifting diversion, we couldn't have asked for anything more.

The show also accomplished something else that I find useful to remember. What we witnessed last night connected to experiences humankind has shared since antiquity. The jumps, swings, and bends have a history that embrace various cultures, time periods, and perspectives. For once, we could sit with pleasure, knowing these gymnasts created magic beyond algorithmic logic's increasingly rigid grasp.

My wife and I were inside the big top during a partial lunar eclipse in North America. This event was particularly unusual because the moon, for reasons more complicated than I can explain, appeared "magnified." We did see the moon on our return drive through the Connecticut night, and took comfort that, like the ancients, we could track our direction by our knowledge of its celestial position.

On our way home, Amy and I noted one of New England's charms is its idiosyncratic street names. We drove along Divinity Street in a strikingly bleak, former manufacturing city. The day's standout name was Asylum Street, in downtown Hartford. It was just a few blocks from the tent where acrobats performed stunts no sane person should ever attempt.

Ben Sonnenberg -- Obituary

Ben Sonnenberg, the founder and sole guiding light of the late literary publication Grand Street, passed away Thursday. You can appraise the NY Times obit of Sonnenberg for yourselves.

A number of issues are implicit in the obit. The article's last paragraph, which follows, raises a number of them.

“I printed only what I liked; never once did I publish an editorial statement; I offered no writers’ guidelines; and I stopped when I couldn’t turn the pages anymore.”

Arrividerci Azzurri

Slovakia knocked Italy out of the World Cup yesterday. The loss was akin to a national disaster in Italy. It's hard to imagine here what impact a national soccer team has on a nation's psyche. I lived in Italy during a World Cup year, and I got a taste of the country's highly opinionated fervor for the Azzurri. The taste could be sweet or bitter, but it was always strong.

The closest American analogy is the state of Wisconsin's attachment to the Green Bay Packers. I went to college in Wisconsin, and during my time there, the state more or less came to a standstill when the Packers played. In those days, the Packers split their home games between Green Bay and Milwaukee. The theory was that the Packers were a state team, and the team wanted to include its southern residents in its home schedule.

Many years later, I went to Wisconsin for a vacation. I stayed in Green Bay, and went to a diner for breakfast. The waitress asked if and when I would be visiting the Packer Hall of Fame. From her tone and approach, it was clear the tour was something that one just simply did. I didn't intend to, and I told her in a nice way that my day's plan was to go to Washington Island, in Lake Michigan.

She looked at me as puzzled as any Italian would have if I had said I was going to a museum, rather than watching the Azzurri on the world stage.

Xe Chairman Bends Over for Congress; Doesn't Like The Feeling

The Xe (formerly known as Blackwater) chairman went on the record about his recent unhappy experiences with Congressional oversight panels. Jeff Stein's WaPo blog tells the tale originally relayed by Chairman Xe during a CNBC interview.

Maybe the proctology analogy isn't so off, as it's been clear for some time that Xe's chairman has his head up his ass.

CIA OKs Xe (Blackwater) Contract

Think the Big O's inside players don't know what they're doing? On the day the Prez gave McChrystal the bum's rush and brought in Petraeus as the Afghan campaign's savior, insiders leaked word of another Xe contract for security services.

Xe is the firm formerly known as Blackwater. Yes, they're still in business, well connected, and ready for action -- in all the wrong places.

Here's today's WaPo story on the topic.

Weird TV

Lately, I've been captive to a television. And it hasn't taken me long to come to an obvious conclusion: TV programming is weird. It's far stranger than reading New York tabloids, one of which I scanned at lunch this afternoon. The newspaper seemed sane compared to the small screen's lurid "news" segments, police procedurals, and bad comedies.

A painfully dim game show I saw earlier this evening illustrates my point. The show featured a contestant and host standing on the roof of a Los Angeles building. The contestant was involved in a stupid guessing game. The truly odd moment was the "drama" manufactured by watching prizes placed on a conveyor belt, which spilled stuff off the roof and crashed many floors below. What was entertaining about this spectacle? I just don't get it.

If you have an explanation why anyone would find this diverting, please post. Inquiring minds would like to know.

Trapeze School

My wife and I were heading home along West Street in New York yesterday, when we saw two people practice on a trapeze. Amy and I have lived in the New York area a long time, and neither of us have ever witnessed any outdoor trapeze acts.

The equipment belongs to an outfit called Trapeze School New York. The institution trains "flyers" and "aerialists". I don't know what qualifications one needs to make the grade, but I would think checking off "vertigo" on the application form would be a real non-starter.

My Religion "Question"

Religion has always been a loaded issue for me. For me, it's an emotional stew that's never come together. I've rarely talked about the "question," have never written about it, and basically have kept my religious sentiments and thoughts from coalescing.

Ironically, I've frequently been engaged with religious environments. I sang in a church choir when I was quite young. I taught for a non-sectarian language school housed in one of New York's best known houses of worship. I worked -- to my regret -- for a Catholic university. My wife and I helped friends complete a pre-nuptial religious ritual that involved the use of our home. Yet, if someone had asked me if I were religious, I would say "no."

Today? Let's just say it's an open question.

NYC Round Ball Recollections

I played soccer when I was a pre-teen. My family had just moved to New York City (Queens, to be exact) from upstate New York. No one in my family had ever touched a soccer ball or watched a soccer match. (They did watch Jim Brown play lacrosse at Syracuse University.)

My first friends in Queens were from South America. They knew soccer and introduced me to the game. We played in a small grassy area behind one of the apartment towers where we lived. These were impromptu games, "unorganized activities" in bureaucratic jargon, and they were certainly not as serious as the basketball games in the public school playground a block away from our soccer patch. I didn't think any of us had any talent for the sport, but Harvard offered one of my South American friends a soccer scholarship.

The basketball players were obviously talented, and came from all over the city to play on Sunday mornings. They played hard and without mercy. At least two players who eventually made NBA teams were among the playground athletes I saw my first autumn in New York. Harvard never approached any of them; Tobacco Road schools were more like it.

I stopped playing ball in high school, opting instead to throw shot put. That sport and I were definitely mismatched. One day I ceased throwing a lead ball into the dirt, and took up golf. I played with a cross-eyed guy who could drive a ball straight down the fairway, something I rarely did.

After a summer assault on New York City's various public courses, I concluded that round ball sports were not for me, at least as a participant. That left water sports and ice skating. I stunk at both of them. My last stand was whiffle ball. I was pretty good at that, but that fling lasted a summer in Wisconsin. After that, I returned to New York, and I never attempted to play a round ball sport in the city.

PS. The photo shows the apartment complex where I lived in Forest Hills during my pre-teen and teen years. The grassy area was behind the building on the right; the city playground was also in that direction.

A Florida Mortgage Story

While popular belief associates New Jersey with America's leader of political funkiness, the national prize for this category belongs to Florida. The linked Washington Post story, in which a US Senate candidate and a former state representative have second home mortgage "issues," is illustrative of my point.

AIG Beats the Rap

With all the fuss on BP and the Fed sting on small-fry mortgage loan sharks, the SEC quietly dropped its probe on AIG's Joseph Cassano.

Not so long ago, although it seems like a decade ago, AIG was bailed out by the US government. The cost? $128 billion. The principal reason for AIG's dramatic fall from financial grace was its profound involvement in highly leveraged, mortgage-backed financial instruments that weren't worth a damn. The architect of this fiscal catastrophe was Joseph Cassano.

At the time of AIG's collapse, Cassano was based in London and, consequently, difficult to bring to effective prosecution. I understand Cassano and his team were among those paid handsome "retention bonuses".

The looting of American household wealth has largely gone unprosecuted and unpunished. I think that's a crime.

The Freddie/Fannie Delisting

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, finally pushed the two firms out of the New York Stock Exchange. Neither Freddie nor Fannie could meet the exchange's listing requirements, and have not for a long time. Today's Washington Post story provides the bare bones details of Freddie and Fannie's ouster from the NYSE, and notes their new home will be the OTC market.

Two years ago, Freddie's equity price per share was in the fifties. "Implied" Federal government backing gave its bonds nearly the same low-risk profile as US Treasurys. Well, times have certainly changed. Fannie and Freddie are kaput; financing for the housing market is in tatters; foreclosure ads now frequent after-midnight cable TV programs; sovereign funds and foreign institutions wonder about the credit worthiness of US government issued financial instruments.

The housing scandals, even with today's Federal indictment of Len Farkas of the disastrously failed Colonial Bank, remain largely unaddressed. Moving Freddie and Fannie out of the NYSE Show and into the relative shadow world of the OTC market reminds us that something very important was abused in this Great Recession: we've trashed our own sense of "full faith and credit" in our financial institutions and our government. We don't know how to restore them to their formerly assuring aura. The most troubling thought of all is that we may never know how.

Oil Lake

Many years ago, I taught Russian refugees. Many related tales of unfathomable catastrophes, including the Chernobyl disaster. One of my students had led the helicopters that dropped sand into the nuclear facility. While radiation-related sickness dogged him in New York, he studied a new, often baffling language and wondered how he would become employed. He talked with me about his experience at Chernobyl calmly, far more so than most people could ever have hoped to muster.

Today, the United States confronts an environmental calamity in the Gulf of Mexico of numbing proportion. One expert claimed today that up to forty percent of the Gulf has essentially become an oil lake. While I doubt Gulf Coast residents will become flee America, I wonder if they will be as resilient as those Russians who left their once-fertile, now-poisoned land.

Reflections on My Wife's Studio Tour

My wife Amy was part of our town's artist studio tour yesterday. Her participation meant the first floor of our apartment was turned into a venue for a one-person exhibit. She didn't accomplish this venture alone: Donna Compton generously spent hours organizing the images and giving Amy's opus its conceptual logic and presentation oomph.

I thought I knew the images well. I've been present for the shooting of nearly all of the nearly seventy hung pictures (hey, find your own link for off-color jokes!) and nearly as many photographs contained in bins. Over the years, Amy and I have discussed the images. I've understood her thinking as she modified them in a darkroom or via Photoshop. We've discussed further directions her photographs might go. Yet, their unique magic almost -- almost -- seems hopelessly elusive to me.

Sometimes, I know what she saw the moment she snapped the picture. That's a very satisfying feeling. However, more often than not, Amy saw something that required her innate talent to grasp, and grasp immediately, without reflection or calculation. When I look at them now, I don't know how she did it, even though I was a witness and intimately aware of my wife's thinking. For someone who cares about the person, the artist, the photograph, this puzzling feeling leaves one wondering how much one can truly understand about any person, and about the act of creation itself.

Standard and Poors has another ratings "oops"

The ratings agency scandals get worse every week. Here's the most recent tidbit: it appears S&P "accidentally" dropped Germany's AAA rating. S&P cited an "administrative error" in this latest lapse in rating agency performance.

The story can be found on Zero Hedge, a financial blog whose sharp reporting must drive Wall Street crazy.

Criterion Out-of-Print Notice (Buñuel fans take note)

The Criterion Collection sent out a notice to its Facebook followers, informing them that certain catalog items would become "out-of-print" effective June 30th. Among them are a number of Buñuel films from his "French" period (for lack of a better categorization), such as Diary of a Chambermaid.

1972

– Image courtesy mptvimages.com

Directors Group, Nov. 1972. George Cukor Hosts a party for Luis Bunuel. Back Row from left: Robert Mulligan, William Wyler, George Cukor, Robert Wise, Jean-Claude Carriere, and Serge Silverman. Front Row from left: Billy Wilder, George Stevens, Luis Bunuel, Alfred Hitchcock, and Rouben Mamoulin.

World Cup memory

The World Cup began earlier today. The event reminded me of the time I lived in Italy, and the national team was in the World Cup. The city where I was living -- Rome -- became completely deserted when the Italian team played. One could hear the TV play-by-play echo through the city streets. And there was no mystery when the Azzurri scored.

The World Cup and the obviously profound Italian interest in its national team left a powerful impact on a foreigner. It's hard for Americans to fully grasp the dimensions of national passion international play unleashes. Big-time college football comes closest, but that's a local phenomenon. The Spanish-language TV programming in the United States (at least where I live) delivers the style and passion of the sport. However, if you really want to "get it," get on a plane and visit a country that identifies with its national soccer team.

Just to be on the safe side, tell them you're Canadian.

Carl Dreyer/Danish Film Institute website

Inquiring minds may wonder who this Dreyer fellow was.

He was a Danish film director best known for making The Passion of Joan of Arc. Without doubt, Dreyer's 1928 silent movie is the best version of the Joan of Arc story on celluloid. Falconetti's Joan ranks among the silent era's great dramatic performances. If you have never seen this movie, by all means make time to see it.

I don't know anything about the Danish Film Institute or its website, but it is worth exploring.

"Bourne Legacy" gossip

Nikki Finke reports that screenwriter Tony Gilroy is onboard to write the treatment for the fourth movie of the Bourne franchise. Greengrass and Damon, however, have not yet agreed to the project.

You'll have to scroll down a bit in the DeadlineHollywood site I linked to find the story.

Pam Grier

I don't have anything original to say about Pam Grier. I have the usual male reaction to her: you can guess what that is. In Grier's case, my curiosity extends beyond her figure and sexiness to her life story. It's an interesting tale, one which Grier relates in her memoir. You can show her a little love by talking your public library into buying a copy of the book.

The LA Times recently published a five question interview with Grier. If you are unfamiliar with Grier's film work, two entry points are the blaxploitation movie Foxy Brown and Quentin Tarantino's underestimated Jackie Brown.

Popular Voting for Movie Awards

A member of our film discussion group recently won an online competition for a short film he directed. His triumph encouraged us to consider the merits of popular voting for "best picture," "best director," or best whatever.

What do you think? Should we open Oscar or Tony voting to the general public? And why/why not?

Vote here!

The Basement Wine Cellar

The other night called for a good red wine. I went to our wine cellar, which happens to be in our finished basement. "Wine cellar" is a polite way to express the tough neighborhood where our wines live. We keep the wines on open wire racks or on bookshelves that aren't busy with books. The wine has to swing with the basement's ambient temperature, which amazingly does not vary greatly over the four seasons. We don't turn the bottles, or keep them a desirable storage angle. In short, most oenophiles would find our benign neglect appalling.

I wasn't mindful of any of these concerns when I looked for the right red for the evening. The choice? A California Cabernet Sauvignon that was a Christmas gift. California wines aren't always my first choice, but there was enough complexity and 14.% oomph to make the selection appealing. The glass of wine that evening didn't change my mind about Napa or Sonoma cabernets: I'm selectively wild about them. However, it took the edge off a tough night, and for that I was grateful.

Belmont

The 142nd running of the Belmont Stakes will be held this afternoon, and that brings my mother to my mind. When she was alive, Mom would have made it a point to watch Belmont or any of the Triple Crown races on television. My mom was not a gambler, but she loved the horses, which she considered beautiful creatures. Why? Perhaps it was something in her Irish heritage. Who knows.

Mom took me to Belmont Park during my high school years. She wanted me to experience the venerable track, its lively color and visceral style. To make matters more interesting, Bernadette (a/k/a Mom) would put down two dollars on a horse. Her selection method ran to which color silks she preferred, and which horse seemed the most graceful. She had fun, and didn't worry about winning. She did yell, though, when the horses came into the home stretch.

I don't have a bettor's interest in this year's Belmont Stakes, and I won't. However, I'll watch the race and root for the Belmont Stakes to continue for years to come.

The photograph linked here was taken at Belmont in 1913, and is from the Library of Congress.

Stuyvesant Town Rent Party

Those wild and crazy folks at Tishman Speyer (TS) are raising the roof at Stuyvesant Town, the Manhattan apartment complex TS owns. However, TS isn't sharing its love with tenants. Instead, according to Crain's New York, TS is "offering more than $20,000 in prizes to referring agents" who produce new tenants willing to pay "market rates" for Manhattan's best-known redoubt of rent control/rent stabilized tenancy.

Incentives are nothing new in New York real estate. What is a curiosity is that TS, which purchased the apartment complex from MetLife in a very highly leveraged deal gone stupendously bad, said "No Mas" to its high-profile creditors recently. That's right: bankrupt. Where is TS getting the red-meat money to throw at the retail rental agent dogs?

TS didn't limit its financial folly to New York. The firm owns a number of big-time buildings in Chicago which have cash flow issues. The Federal Reserve, one of TS' creditors in the Chicago caper, recently reworked TS' repayment terms so that they were much more favorable to TS. (Thank you, CrainsNY.) That means taxpayers are footing the bill.

Some rent party, don't you think?

The Imperfect Game

An unusual event occurred in Major League Baseball last night. A pitcher for the Detroit Tigers threw a perfect game, only to have the first base umpire obviously miss a call that would have been the 27th and final out. The Detroit pitcher, by this egregious turn of fortune, ironically has become a sports celebrity beyond what his achievement would have typically merited him.

Sometimes, a seemingly cruel twist of fate leads to a situation better than one could imagine. When my wife Amy and I were on our honeymoon in France, we looked forward to celebrating my birthday in Paris. However, such was not meant to be. A French rail strike completely paralyzed transportation throughout the country and within Paris. Accepting local advice, we booked a hotel in a town we'd never heard of. The destination turned out to be a medieval town off the beaten track. I can still vividly recall the town, its quiet sense of history, its maze-like streets echoing ancient ways.

It was a birthday to remember.

Your Diebold ATM Receipt Said "Withdrawal" Instead of "Deposit"?

A bank ATM I occasionally use recently switched from Diebold to a competitor. After thinking for a few minutes, I recalled that Diebold manufactured ATMs and voting machines. The Ohio-based firm played a controversial role in the 2004 Bush-Kerry vote in the Buckeye State.

While many have forgotten Diebold's moment in history, the Obama administration has not. Today, a number of Diebold executives settled with the SEC in a case involving accounting fraud. (Some other of Diebold's "smartest people in the room" continue to contest the SEC charges.)

The Diebold execs' scheme provides plenty of unintended irony. Read the linked Washington Post story for more details.

A Texas-Sized Bankruptcy

Last week, the Texas Rangers major league baseball franchise declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. What was curious about the bankruptcy announcement was the identity of the largest unsecured creditor. If you guessed an insurance company, private equity firm, state pension fund, or other deep-pocketed investor, you would have been wrong. The correct answer was Alex Rodriguez, currently playing third base for the Yankees. He's owed $25 million.

The line score for the Rangers? No runs, nowhere to hide, and plenty of errors in judgement.